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Garry oaks are not a threatened species

Life must be cushy in Oak Bay if council has time to worry about ugly trees that are only viable because of human activities.

Life must be cushy in Oak Bay if council has time to worry about ugly trees that are only viable because of human activities.

A recent issue of the environmentally-oriented magazine Focus reminds people that Garry oak trees were fostered here by tribal people burning underbrush to facilitate desirable plants such as camas. In this region tribal people created meadows to increase the length of interface areas more favourable to the animals they harvested for food and skins. (Such as those spelled d-e-e-r).

The palm trees being planted here were developed to grow in cooler climates than where they are native.

As the climate cycles toward cool again, as it was in the 1960s and 1970s, those palms and Garry oaks will be stressed. What will Oak Bay’s do-gooders try then?

Perhaps worse is anti-palm activists using the scam of blaming humans for climate variation.

Their theoretical predictions are failing; sea level not rising much, and middle altitude temperatures changing opposite to their forecasts, for example.

The science of particle physics and empirical engineering practice show a limit to the effect CO2 can have on climate temperature, most of which has already occurred.

Meanwhile research is illuminating feedbacks that keep climate stable, and possible mechanisms by which emissions from the sun vary climate, such as spawning clouds.

Yet activists are becoming more strident and dishonest in trying to blame humans. Why?

By the way, there are many Garry oaks across the Strait of Georgia, where they are called White oaks. Hardly a threatened species.

Keith Sketchley

Saanich